The opportunity to gain practical experience abroad with your fellow students. This is what came the way of Elize van Dongen, Cecile Kwa, Tom Houben, Juwe van Vliet, Max de Man and Guus Meinema. They spent almost three months in the interior of Suriname to investigate flooding. They arranged the entire project on their own, including making contacts and raising funds. “Data that is readily available in the Netherlands we had to collect ourselves,” Elize explains. “This meant, for example, that two people had to spend a whole day sitting by the river measuring the water level.” Flooding in the area is caused by rising sea levels, the changing rainy season and cutting down of vegetation. “This manifests itself in bank erosion, water damage to houses and land erosion. We designed a bank protection structure that helps strengthen and reclaim riverbanks. Thanks to funds we received, we were able to build the first 30 metres of this wooden structure, together with the villagers. We were given mangroves with which to fortify the soil against land erosion, and we planted these with them. We also wrote a business case for raising the money to complete the construction.” They also made three information boards in the local language, Aukan, with tips on what villagers themselves can do against erosion. Examples are: not pulling out plants, and not building houses in lower-lying parts of the village. The students found this trip very impressive. “Poor electricity supply, no WiFi, hardly any roads in the area – some transport is even still by boat. It was a valuable learning experience, a great addition to our studies in Delft.”